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Extra Time: 50 Further Delights of Modern Football
Whimsical, engaging and elegantly written, Extra Time shares 50 entries on a different delight of football.
Extra Time will be loved by fans of Saturday, 3pm and new readers under football's spell. In short, anyone who has ever felt the exultation of watching their team score two goals in quick succession, revelled in an irrational dislike of a certain club or cherished a local radio commentator.
Balloons on the pitch. Goalkeepers going forward for corners. The crowd whistling to bring full-time closer. Jeering a disallowed opposition goal. The ball being cleared off the line. Can we count the ways in which we love football ... the little things which make it mean so much?
Extra Time offers a half-century of joyous prose poetry salutes to the beautiful game. Each short chapter sings with affections for the game. This is relatable, observational writing on sometimes tender and always universal themes; the sportswriting equivalent of a comforting hug.
Extra Time will help renew its readers' love of football. It will grow faith in the shared experiences of being a follower of the game--a comforting feeling that no supporter is alone in his or her eccentricities. The book demonstrates that, in a world coming apart at the seams, this sport and its technicolour minutiae offer an escape needed now more than ever. These 50 nuggets of pleasure are a sweet medicine in the face of disillusionment with modern football VAR and all; reminders of why we care and justifications for our devotion. It is time to start counting the love again.
Extra Time will be loved by fans of Saturday, 3pm and new readers under football's spell. In short, anyone who has ever felt the exultation of watching their team score two goals in quick succession, revelled in an irrational dislike of a certain club or cherished a local radio commentator.
Balloons on the pitch. Goalkeepers going forward for corners. The crowd whistling to bring full-time closer. Jeering a disallowed opposition goal. The ball being cleared off the line. Can we count the ways in which we love football ... the little things which make it mean so much?
Extra Time offers a half-century of joyous prose poetry salutes to the beautiful game. Each short chapter sings with affections for the game. This is relatable, observational writing on sometimes tender and always universal themes; the sportswriting equivalent of a comforting hug.
Extra Time will help renew its readers' love of football. It will grow faith in the shared experiences of being a follower of the game--a comforting feeling that no supporter is alone in his or her eccentricities. The book demonstrates that, in a world coming apart at the seams, this sport and its technicolour minutiae offer an escape needed now more than ever. These 50 nuggets of pleasure are a sweet medicine in the face of disillusionment with modern football VAR and all; reminders of why we care and justifications for our devotion. It is time to start counting the love again.
- GenresNonfictionSportsFootball
176 pages, Hardcover
Published January 5, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 31, 2023
Daniel Gray just gets what it means to be a football fan, and there are so many relatable things in his second volume of his love letter to the game.
From soft spot teams to fickle fans and goalies up for corners to goal line clearances. There is even a chapter about taking your daughter to her first match, something I finally got to do this year.
A wonderful ode to the beautiful game.
From soft spot teams to fickle fans and goalies up for corners to goal line clearances. There is even a chapter about taking your daughter to her first match, something I finally got to do this year.
A wonderful ode to the beautiful game.
November 14, 2020
50 short reflections on the small pleasures of watching football. If modern, corporate football wears you down, take time to sit back and muse on the small delights that still make it worthwhile. Many of these are so universal that it is a pleasant reminder that you have more in common with your fellow spectator than you might think at times. All written in Daniel's gleeful prose. I am now happily thinking of another half dozen delights of my own that I enjoy at 3pm on a Saturday.
Perfect Christmas stocking filler, perfect book to calm you after a busy day, perfect book in bite-sized chunks when overcome with brain fog.
A delight.
Perfect Christmas stocking filler, perfect book to calm you after a busy day, perfect book in bite-sized chunks when overcome with brain fog.
A delight.
January 24, 2021
The sequel to a book I haven't read, Extra Time consists of 50 vignettes on the beautiful game.
While all of the situations described were familiar to me from my 30 years of watching football, the short examples avoided specifics, with very few mentions of players or teams by name.
The writing is good, but perhaps excessively flowery and overly descriptive for the subject matter, at least in this form.
A different take on football writing.
While all of the situations described were familiar to me from my 30 years of watching football, the short examples avoided specifics, with very few mentions of players or teams by name.
The writing is good, but perhaps excessively flowery and overly descriptive for the subject matter, at least in this form.
A different take on football writing.
December 31, 2020
Just like the first in this series, helped rediscover why I am still so enchanted with this beautifully maddening game.
January 24, 2021
Priestley has a fitting heir: a feast of simile and metaphor, and a lovely look at the pastime.
August 15, 2021
A perfect book to read before the start of the football season.
I’ve read the previous installments in his series, but this one is the best in my opinion.
I’ve read the previous installments in his series, but this one is the best in my opinion.
August 23, 2022
Good sequel and name checks the finest football song ever, the Greasy Chip Butty Song
October 4, 2023
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Especially good if your own team has suddenly become terrible at football, and as a result everything else in life is tinted by disappointment and despair.
January 26, 2025
Not as enjoyable as the previous books in the series - a little bit of repetition had crept in, I feel.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews